Hi all, i am just about to learn foiling. Until now my focus in kiting has been strappless on like a 5' 2" surfboard.
I would like to continue to just be strappless on the foilboard but wanted to hear from you all on if it is bettter/easier to learn with straps?
Thanks in advance......

The safest way would be to learn with two hooks until you foil safely.
Then lose the rear one
Then get rid of the front one

Straps are riskier especially front strap only - twisted/broken ankles take time to heal

I have looked through most if not all the posts mentioning the foot hooks, I bought a set of these when they first came out, and used them for 3 sessions.
then unscrewed them and sold them on.
the reason was two very scary situations when the bar got trapped in the hooks during big wind chop water starts, which started with the lines getting caught first quickly followed by the bar as the kite power came on hard as the trapped lines tightened up, flipping awful situation.
But no one else seems to have had this happen????
just me:[

I have looked through most if not all the posts mentioning the foot hooks, I bought a set of these when they first came out, and used them for 3 sessions.
then unscrewed them and sold them on.
the reason was two very scary situations when the bar got trapped in the hooks during big wind chop water starts, which started with the lines getting caught first quickly followed by the bar as the kite power came on hard as the trapped lines tightened up, flipping awful situation.
But no one else seems to have had this happen????
just me:[

+1 for learning strapless. I'm a rider of (barely) average ability who took more than average time to learn to foil. Strapless may have slowed me down some, but I never felt remotely like I would hurt my knees or ankles during my thousands of crashes. And now that I'm decent at it, I feel like the ability to move around the board makes it really easy to experiment with different ways of turning and switching feet.

I do think that a low-volume board is ESSENTIAL for learning strapless -- high volume boards are just too hard to keep on their sides while you get everything set to waterstart, especially when it's all new. I was certainly influenced by Greg Drexler's writings when deciding to go strictly strapless, and for me it was great advice.

I learned with a loose front strap only, and that worked well for me, no twisted ankles and easy to get away from the board when crashing. I'm comfortable riding smoothly both directions, but only on the Slingshot Hoverglide. Any other foil I've tried just tosses me off, especially the carbon ones.

BUT, I've struggled to ride toeside and was annoyed at having to restart all the time, so I decided to go strapless. I could not do it with my buddies boards, so I tried another that Bob from Madison had at Cape Hatteras last summer for learners, the largest available Slingshot board with the aluminum Slingshot Hoverglide foil.

I didn't try the strapless starting procedure I see on videos and described in several posts above where you try to get the board on its side all hunched up, instead I did it the way I start on my strapless directionals. I just get the board pointed in the right direction, leaving the foil fully downward and the board flat, lift both feet onto the board, and dive the kite to bring me up onto the board and ride away. Took perhaps three tries to get it right.

And now, to try to learn touch-down gybes, I've taken an old rubber-top seven foot surfboard and bolted my Hoverglide foil onto it and am rapidly learning touch-down gybes, indeed got them right off the bat with 15 inch mast, so moving back up to 24 inch, etc. Next will be to bolt the foil to one of my directionals, or fork over the money for a Slingshot Converter board. I doubt I will ever get to do full foiling gybes, but I want to avoid having to restart all the time. I'm 62, kiting for 13 years, and 85kg.